Some 50
residents of the city of Babruisk came yesterday to local office of the United
Civil Party to remember the victims of Soviet political repression.

The event
was preceded by the laying of flowers to the monument dedicated to the victims
of the Stalin-era Great Purge.

Among
others, the activists spoke of their townsmen: writer Barys Mikulich, poet
Siarhei Hrakhouski, and Orthodox priest Pavel Seiba. Executed without trial by
the KGB in 1937, Pavel Seiba was expected to be beatified. However, Belarus’
current secret police has repeatedly refused to disclose archive documents that
are necessary for the procedure.

“The inscription
on the stone “To Babruisk residents, victims of groundless repressions” is appalling.
It turns out that repressions are admissible, if they are well-grounded,” says
Anatol Sanatsenka, editor-in-chief of the Babruiski Kurier independent
newspaper.